Various applications require the viewing and monitoring of a large field of regard, with high resolution and at low cost. Such requirements may also include miniaturized device dimensions and low power consumption.
Moreover, the imaged scenes may need to be processed, in order to identify certain objects or events therein. For example, in some monitoring applications, scene changes and moving objects are identified, requiring rapid rate coverage for detection and scene analysis. In medical applications, diagnostic requirements often include rapid viewing of large field of regard while seeking very small anomalies and irregularities. The addition of imagers and image processors to the viewing/monitoring applications may increase the size, cost, and/or power of the imaging systems.
WO 2008/129552, assigned to the assignee of the present application, describes a method and system for monitoring a field of regard. According to this technique, at least a part of a field of regard is imaged by concurrently collecting a plurality of light components propagating from a plurality of zones, respectively, located within the field of regard, a combined collected light beam is produced, and corresponding data is generated being indicative of a combined image of the at least part of the field of regard formed by the collected light components. This image data indicative of the combined image data is processed and analyzed, and if existence of a certain condition or event is identified in the image data, a corresponding control signal is generated.